History of Mt. Carmel, South Carolina

Like America itself, Mt. Carmel was founded by people in search of religious freedom. The first Europeans in the area were French Huguenots, having followed the Savannah River up from Charelston, South Carolina, and settling in the mid 1700's. Legend has it that a group of friends gathered for a picnic one warm afternoon and named the area Mt. Carmel, in honor of a beloved French village.

Mt. Carmel's close proximity to the Savannah Rivers made it a popular spot for new settlers, especially the Scotch-Irish. A post office was opened in Mt. Carmel in 1854, and the town was officially charted in 1885. It was that year that Drury Boykin Cade established a pottery and brick factory in Mt. Carmel.

Mt. Carmel began to grow rapidly around the brick factory, and by 1890 had six stores, a church, a school, and a carriage shop.

The town's heydays of extensive cotton production in the early 1900's saw addition growth. A bank, two cotton gins, a hotel, four churches, and 14 stores were officially listed. One of these 14 was McAllister's Drug Store.

The boll weevil began the town's demise in the late 1920's. Cotton was devastated and farmers had no money to pay back loans at the bank or patronize the town's stores. They had no choice but to search elsewhere for employment.

The McAllister Family chose to stick it out, and today McAllisters remains as one of the last vestiges of Mt. Carmel's history.